| Soon the snow was gone, and another year was to begin. I like the spring because everything is beginning to come to life again.Trees throwing out new leaf buds, flowers pushing up through the earth, and birds building their nests. Trees and flowers coming to life again, is of course all very nice, but birds building nest....now that was something else! On weekends, my friends would come knocking on my door, "Are you coming nesting" they asked. When I was young, a lad was envied not because of a pretty girlfriend, but by the size of his egg collection. It wasn't illegal then to pinch bird's eggs, so off we would go to the local woodland with a little box filled with cotton wool, to search for nests. I never robbed a nest of all its eggs, and only looked for nests of birds whose eggs I didn't have in my collection. Most nest were easy to reach, such as the Thrush or Blackbird, which could be found in hedgerows, Robins and Wrens in the banks of the stream, but if you needed a magpies egg, that was something different! These were at the top of a high tree, and difficult to get your hand into the nest. Apart from the danger of climbing the tree, I was often "buzzed" by the magpies defending the nest. If I was lucky, and got an egg, it was impossible to climb back down clutching an egg almost the size of a chickens egg, so my friend below would take off his coat and hold it out, then I would drop the egg into it. Then we removed the yolk by taking a thorn from a hawthorn tree, making a small hole at each end of the egg, and then blowing the yolk out. Then off back home to place the egg neatly labeled, into my glass topped collection tray. My friends and I didnt hang around street corners looking bored, as most kids are today, we weren't 'streetwise' more like country wise. We got to learn about nature, animals, and how to survive in the woods, we learnt what we berries we could eat, and how to catch trout from the stream. On the weekends we set off along a rough lane called "Pit Road" passing the vegetable "allotments" that were rented by the menfolk of the Graig. In these allotments they grew vegetables for the table, and also to make some beer money by selling them to the people in the area. Dad also had an allotment, and on Sunday mornings would come home with a basket full of all sorts of veg and fruit. Anyway, to get back to the story, we walked along Pit Road until we came to Shonis pond.At the side of the pond was a footpath to a small stream or "brook" as we called it. Following the brook for about half a mile brought us to our "camp" which was in a clearing in the wood and next to a small waterfall. First thing was to light the camp fire,using dead grass, twigs, and large logs. We didn't always have matches, so I focused the rays of the sun through a magnifying glass that I always carried, onto the dead grass until it smouldered, then blew gently until I had a flame, the twigs were then added, followed by logs, and soon we had a blazing fire. Off then came our shoes and socks, and we quietly waded into the shallow brook. Under the flat stones there would be trout hiding. I carefully placed my hands under a stone, nothing, then another until at last, I felt the soft shape of a fish. Stroking the trout gently with my fingers until it seemed to go off into a deep sleep, I would then throw it up onto the grassy bank to be collected by my friends. When we had caught enough, we put them onto a pointed stick and cooked them over the glowing embers of our fire. Perhaps the first B-B-Q in Wales? After we had eaten our meal of trout, garnished with a few edible plants from the woods, we then played on a rope swing which was tied to an overhanging branch of a huge oak tree, or peeled our clothes off, and swam in the deep pool at the bottom of the waterfall. After an enjoyable day, and in the failing light we made our way back to our homes. |
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| Springtime |
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| In the 1950s with some of my friends Des Jones, Wayne Morgan and Myself |